Wednesday, May 17, 2006
In the Fight Against Spam E-Mail, Goliath Wins Again
Eran Reshef had an idea in the battle against spam e-mail that seemed to be working: he fought spam with spam. Today, he'll give up the fight.
Reshef's Silicon Valley company, Blue Security Inc., simply asked the spammers to stop sending junk e-mail to his clients. But because those sort of requests tend to be ignored, Blue Security took them to a new level: it bombarded the spammers with requests from all 522,000 of its customers at the same time.
That led to a flood of Internet traffic so heavy that it disrupted the spammers' ability to send e-mails to other victims -- a crippling effect that caused a handful of known spammers to comply with the requests.
Then, earlier this month, a Russia-based spammer counterattacked, Reshef said. Using tens of thousands of hijacked computers, the spammer flooded Blue Security with so much Internet traffic that it blocked legitimate visitors from going to Bluesecurity.com, as well as to other Web sites. The spammer also sent another message: Cease operations or Blue Security customers will soon find themselves targeted with virus-filled attacks.
Today, Reshef will wave a virtual white flag and surrender. The company will shut down this morning and its Web site will display a message informing its customers about the closure.
"It's clear to us that [quitting] would be the only thing to prevent a full-scale cyber-war that we just don't have the authority to start," Reshef said. "Our users never signed up for this kind of thing."
Security experts say the move marks a disheartening development in the ongoing battle by computer users, online businesses and law enforcement against those who clutter e-mail inboxes with a continuous glut of ads for drugs, porn and get-rich-quick schemes. According to Symantec Corp., maker of the popular Norton antivirus software products, more than 50 percent of all e-mail sent in the latter half of 2005 was spam.
Alan Paller, director of research for the Bethesda-based SANS Institute, a computer security training group, said extortion attacks have exploded in the past few years. With Blue Security, Paller said, the attackers' extortionist demands were that the company merely stop interfering in a multimillion-dollar spam operation.
"We're hearing from federal law enforcement that they are getting more than one new case of online extortion each day," Paller said.
The spammer's counterattack generated so much Internet traffic that it also affected other sites, including Six Apart Ltd., a San Francisco-based company that runs millions of Web sites through its TypePad and LiveJournal blogging services. The attack also shut down operations for roughly 12 hours at Tucows Inc., a Toronto-based Internet services company that helped manage Blue Security's site.
Tucows chief executive Elliot Noss called the attack "by far the largest the company had ever seen," and said that only a handful of companies have the infrastructure in place to withstand such an assault, much less a more powerful one.
"This attack really was like trying to take out a mosquito with an atomic bomb," Noss said.
The FBI is investigating the attacks, according to Six Apart, but agency officials would not confirm a federal investigation yesterday.
Todd Underwood, chief of operations and security for Renesys Corp., a company that monitors Internet connectivity, called the attack against Blue Security "unsurprising but sad."
The innovative approach in the fight against spam caught the attention of investors in 2004, when Blue Security received more than $4 million in venture capital, but critics questioned whether the company could win such a massive battle.
"When the company's founders first approached the broader anti-spam community and asked them what they thought of the idea, everyone said this was a terrible idea and that they would eventually cause a lot of collateral damage," Underwood said. "But it's also extremely unfortunate, because it shows how much the spammers are winning this battle."
source:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/16/AR2006051601873.html
Google Releases AJAX Framework
source:http://developers.slashdot.org/developers/06/05/17/127214.shtml
IBM to adopt ODF for Lotus Notes
The first beta, due out this fall, will include an ODF-compatible version of OpenOffice embedded in the Notes e-mail application. It will include word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation applications (or editors, as they are called), giving users the ability to create, edit, and save documents natively in ODF.
Amy Wohl, president of Wohl Associates, called the news significant on a number of levels.
"This is the way of getting the ODF standard out to a large number of users in a very short time and, since standards live or die on how many people use them, this gives it a jumpstart," Wohl said.
Code-named Hannover, the new Notes version will be available with the productivity editors included to all Notes users who are current on software maintenance contacts. IBM estimates that number at 125 million users.
ODF recently received strong support from the ISO standards body, which voted to approve the OpenDocument format as a specification.
According to Gary Edwards, president of the OpenDocument Foundation, approval of ODF as a specification is the last major hurdle to official adoption of the standard.
ODF documents will also give users a way to exchange documents now and into the future regardless of the editor that was used to write the document, according to Wohl.
"You can exchange documents in PDF but they are not editable," Wohl said.
Although Microsoft has said it would not put transforms into the next version of Office, there are already a number of third parties creating ODF plug-ins for the Microsoft productivity suite.
With ODF, users will also be able to create composite applications using any file from an ODF-enabled productivity suite. To that end, IBM also announced that Notes will ship with APIs into SAP back-end applications by May 30.
IBM will in essence be offering a productivity suite within Notes, but Big Blue is not going into the desktop applications business, according to Wohl.
Instead, IBM is allowing productivity applications to be offered as a Web service in building composite applications.
"If you're building a benefits applications online, you might need a word processing editor right inside the application. With ODF you can pull the editor service into the application," Wohl said.
An IBM spokesperson said composite applications will extend the value of IBM middleware from the server to the desktop.
Local and state governments as well as the EU have expressed interest in ODF as a standard document format, yet it remains to be seen if it will be adopted by enterprise-level public and private companies.
Wohl believes although it is not terribly important now, that may soon change.
"Over time it will depend on who you have relationships with. If a business partner uses ODF you will too. … that is why putting [it] into Notes is so important."
source:http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/05/16/78380_HNibmodf2_1.html
The Amazon Technology Platform
source:http://slashdot.org/articles/06/05/17/0453208.shtml
Biotech Firm Raises Furor With Rice Plan
Environmental groups, corporate food interests and thousands of farmers across the country have succeeded in chasing Ventria Bioscience's rice farms out of two states. And critics continue to complain that Ventria is recklessly plowing ahead with a mostly untested technology that threatens the safety of conventional crops grown for food.
"We just want them to go away," said Bob Papanos of the U.S. Rice Producers Association. "This little company could cause major problems."
Ventria, with 16 employees, practices "biopharming," the most contentious segment of agricultural biotechnology because its adherents essentially operate open-air drug factories by splicing human genes into crops to produce proteins that can be turned into medicines.
Ventria's rice produces two human proteins found in mother's milk, saliva and tears, which help people hydrate and lessen the severity and duration of diarrhea attacks, a top killer of children in developing countries.
But farmers, environmentalists and others fear that such medicinal crops will mix with conventional crops, making them unsafe to eat.
The company says the chance of its genetically engineered rice ending up in the food supply is remote because the company grinds the rice and extracts the protein before shipping. What's more, rice is "self-pollinating," and it's virtually impossible for genetically engineered rice to accidentally cross breed with conventional crops.
"We use a contained system," Ventria Chief Executive Scott Deeter said.
Regardless, U.S. rice farmers in particular fear that important overseas customers in lucrative, biotechnology-averse countries like Japan will shun U.S. crops if biopharming is allowed to proliferate. Exports account for 50 percent of the rice industry's $1.18 billion in annual sales.
Japanese consumers, like those in Western Europe, are still alarmed by past mad cow disease outbreaks mishandled by their governments, making them deeply skeptical of any changes to their food supply, including genetically engineered crops.
Rice interests in California drove Ventria's experimental work out of the state in 2004, after Japanese customers said they wouldn't buy the rice if Ventria were allowed to set up shop.
Anheuser-Busch Inc. and Riceland Foods Inc., the world's largest rice miller, were among the corporate interests that pressured the company to abandon plans to set up a commercial-scale farm in Missouri's rice belt last year.
But Ventria was undeterred. The company, which has its headquarters in Sacramento, finally landed near Greenville, N.C. In March it received U.S. Department of Agriculture clearance to expand its operation there from 70 acres to 335 acres. Ventria is hoping to get regulatory clearance this year to market its diarrhea-fighting protein powder.
There has been little resistance from corporate and farming interest in eastern North Carolina. But the company's work has raised the hackles of environmentalists there.
"The issue is the growing of pharmaceutical products in food crops grown outdoors," said Hope Shand of the environmental nonprofit ETC Group in Carrboro, N.C. "The chance this will contaminate traditionally grown crops is great. This is a very risky business."
Deeter points out that there aren't any commercial rice growers in North Carolina, although the USDA did allow Ventria to grow its controversial crop about a half-mile from a government "rice station," where new strains are tested. The USDA has since moved that station to Beltsville, Md., though an agency spokeswoman said the relocation had nothing to do with Ventria.
The company, meanwhile, has applied to the Food and Drug Administration to approve the protein powder as a "medical food" rather than a drug. That means Ventria wouldn't have to conduct long and costly human tests. Instead, it submitted data from scientific experts attesting to the company's powder is "generally regarded as safe."
Earlier this month, a Peruvian scientist sponsored by Ventria presented data at the Pediatric Academics Societies meeting in San Francisco. It showed children hospitalized in Peru with serious diarrhea attacks recovered quicker — 3.67 days versus 5.21 days — if the dehydration solution they were fed contained the powder.
Ventria's chief executive said he hopes to have an approval this year and envisions a $100 million annual market in the United States. Deeter forecasts a $500 million market overseas, especially in developing countries where diarrhea is a top killer of children under the age of 5. The World Health Organization reports that nearly 2 million children succumb to diarrhea each year.
But overcoming consumer skepticism and regulatory concerns about feeding babies with products derived from genetic engineering is a tall order. This is especially true in the face of continued opposition to biopharming from the Grocery Manufacturers Association of America, which represents food, beverage and consumer products companies with combined U.S. sales of $460 billion.
Ventria hopes to add its protein powder to existing infant products. There is no requirement to label any food products in the United States as containing genetically engineered ingredients.
The company also has ambitious plans to add its product to infant formula, a $10 billion-a-year market, even though the major food manufacturers have so far shown little interest in using genetically engineered ingredients. But Deeter says Ventria can win over the manufacturers and consumers by showing the company's products are beneficial.
"For children who are weaning, for instance, these two proteins have enormous potential to help their development," Deeter said. "Breast-fed babies are healthier and these two proteins are a big reason why."
source:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060514/ap_on_sc/biopharming_dilemma
Gates Claims PC Era Not Over Yet
source:http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/17/0013234
Can Peer-To-Peer Finance Work?
source:http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/16/2013205
Do You Care if Your Website is W3C Compliant?
source:http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/16/2127212
Back to the Moon: Uniting Science and Exploration
Back in January 2004, President George W. Bush put NASA on a trajectory to return astronauts to the Moon as early as 2015 and no later than 2020. Since then, the space agency has been hustling to devise its lunar action plan.
Rebuilding the skywalk to the Moon that was discarded in the early 1970s will not come easy. Not only are new technologies required, but there’s also need for NASA to relight its own institutional pilot light ... to muster up the guts to strike out beyond low Earth orbit once again.
How best to stage lunar exploration while setting up, perhaps, a long-term, Antarctica-like base on the Moon means drawing upon both engineering and scientific communities.
Simply sponging off the heritage of Apollo is not good enough. Indeed, NASA finds itself without a legacy to stand on.
Hard work ahead
More than three decades ago, the United States exploited a myriad of skills to hurl humans to the Moon – then allowed those skills to atrophy.
"We proactively made decisions as a country that caused those capabilities to go away," noted NASA chief, Michael Griffin, during a congressional hearing earlier this year. "We have a decade’s worth of hard work in front of us just to be able to get back to where we were ... and then Mars will be the decade after that."
John Connolly of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and head of lunar lander design work, said there’s a central motive to fly the lunar distance again.
"We’re going back to the Moon to relearn the art of exploration. That’s very profound," Connolly said at the International Space Development Conference (ISDC) held earlier this month. "We really haven’t done real exploring on planetary surfaces by humans for a long time," he said.
And a key ingredient in helping NASA regain its moonlegs is science.
Safer, sooner and more capable
Why should the science community engage the vision of returning to the Moon, going on to Mars and beyond? Christopher McKay, lunar exploration program scientist at NASA Ames Research Center, located in California’s Silicon Valley, has a trio of reasons.
"Science has a role in providing the data needed to make human exploration safer, sooner and more capable," explained McKay. "And ultimately what the human explorers are going to be doing on the Moon and Mars is science," he told SPACE.com.
However, McKay said that hard choices are going to have to be made to get human exploration going. "The science community needs to be involved in shaping these choices. We should make the Vision for Space Exploration a science-driven vision and shape the choices accordingly."
Before NASA starts dispatching astronauts to the Moon, U.S. robotic spacecraft are to orbit and land upon that bleak, barren globe – carrying out scientific research and make the measurements that will feed into follow-on human exploration.
For one, NASA’s McKay said that lunar topography data is necessary for precision landing and hazard avoidance. Also, health and safety issues for long-term stays of people on the Moon need to be identified. How to live and work in a dusty lunar vacuum is on the checklist too, he said, as is the creation of durable life support gear.
Then there’s the question of the "H factor" – that is, whether or not hydrogen in the form of lunar ice is tucked away within Sun shy areas at the Moon’s poles. If present and accounted for in such a state, that’s a nifty resource to convert to oxygen and fuel.
"The question of ice on the Moon is a tricky one," McKay explained at the recent ISDC. "You might even contend that it’s more faith-based than data-based. So the first step is to improve the data base."
To support the many research tasks as a prelude to the re-arrival of humans on the Moon, there’s need for a mature, well-connected, well-developed science community, McKay stated.
Cultural confidence
McKay has suggested that McMurdo Station in Antarctica is an analog useful in guiding any thinking about a future Moon base. That station was established in December 1955 and is the logistics hub of the U.S. Antarctic Program.
After some 50 years of exploration at McMurdo, good science is still being produced, McKay advised during a special session on the return to the Moon, held last March at the 37th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference.
"The Moon is at least as interesting as Antarctica. I don’t think that we will exhaust the scientific potential of the Moon in 50 years…just like after 50 years we haven’t decided that there’s nothing further to learn in Antarctica," McKay pointed out.
Continuous operations in Antarctica are achieved through a series of stints by people at the base, McKay said. "There are no families…no settlement…it’s not a colony. It’s a research base."
Setting up something similar on the Moon is not at odds with NASA going on to Mars, McKay said. Once humans are traipsing about on the Moon again, he observed, acquiring that lunar competence provides technical -- as well as cultural -- confidence to attempt an even greater challenge – the human exploration of Mars.
Natural laboratory
If NASA’s lunar strategy flourishes, the Moon could well be dotted with science instruments and facilities fulfilling various tasks. An extended human presence on the Moon will enable astronauts to develop new technologies and harness the Moon’s available resources. Doing so would allow human venturing beyond the Moon, starting with Mars.
In looking up at the Moon, however, it seems peculiar to view that crater-pocked, airless world as serving up advice on life elsewhere, even right here on Earth. But the Moon is an important natural laboratory for key aspects of the astrobiological exploration of the accessible Universe.
That’s the view of James Garvin, Chief Scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "The Moon represents the only ‘accessible’ natural laboratory for hypervelocity impact cratering from which essential paradigms can be developed in support of astrobiological objectives," Garvin recently reported at a yearly gathering of astrobiologists.
The lunar cratering record and distribution can be used as a quantifiable "chronometer", Garvin noted, with which to better understand the "impact of impact" on the astrobiological evolution of Earth and potentially Mars.
Dehydrated neighbor
"With all of the astrobiology focus on ‘follow the water’, our dehydrated neighbor is easy to ignore," said Lynn Rothschild, Director, Astrobiology Strategic Analysis and Support Office at NASA’s Ames Research Center.
"However, it has been clear to me for several years that the Moon has had a profound influence on life on Earth. In fact, I think we could make a strong case that humans would not be here without our large, stabilizing Moon," she said.
Rothschild told SPACE.com that serious lunar exploration could greatly enhance astrobiology.
"It has the best record of impacts and radiation regime on early Earth - a record that has been obliterated here," Rothschild said. "It could provide a way station for the study of life elsewhere, should it be found."
Furthermore, as for a key question of astrobiology -- what is the future of life on Earth and beyond – "the Moon looms large in these calculations," Rothschild said. "Lunar exploration greatly enriches science of the Earth and beyond…and without the science driver, lunar exploration in the near-term becomes a re-plant of the flag."
- Gallery: Full Moon Fever
- Moon Race: U.S. Not Alone in Future Lunar Exploration
- Moon Water: A Trickle of Data and a Flood of Questions
- Gallery: Walking on the Moon
source:http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060516_science_tuesday.html
Analyst: Wii Will Cost $200
Nintendo, which is trying to regain videogame market share from Microsoft and Sony, will likely sell its new Wii console for much less than its competitors' console prices. Merrill Lynch analyst Justin Post predicted Thursday that the new machine, which will be released this fall, will sell for $200, a move that could prompt software publishers to create more titles for the gaming system.
Microsoft's (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) Xbox 360 starts at $299, while Sony (nyse: SNE - news - people ) said earlier this week that its new PS3, which will ship in November, will cost $499 for a basic machine. Nintendo (otcbb: NTDOY.PK - news - people ) didn't offer any pricing information when it showed off the Wii on Tuesday to a crowd gathered in advance of the E3 gaming expo. An executive from SEGA, one of Nintendo's largest publishers, told Forbes.com on Tuesday that he expects the Wii to sell for less than $200 (see: " Show, Don't Tell").
Post said the Nintendo machine, which features a wireless controller that responds to players' body movements, "will appeal to a broad demographic of both hard-core and casual gamers." The Wii, which has less processing power than Sony's and Microsoft's offerings, may be easier to create new software for, and Post thinks third-party game publishers "are responding favorably to the lower-cost publishing environment for the Wii."
In addition, the analyst said he's expecting 2007 to be a big year for software for the next-generation consoles and that sales could exceed his early 17% growth forecast. Significant titles slated for release include Microsoft's Halo 3, Sony's Gran Turismo, Activision's (nasdaq: ATVI - news - people ) Spider-Man and Shrek games and Take-Two Interactive's (nasdaq: TTWO - news - people ) Grand Theft Auto 4.
Third-party THQ (nasdaq: THQI - news - people ) has a strong pipeline of games for fiscal 2007 but will need successful next-generation properties in fiscal 2008, the analyst said. Likewise, Electronic Arts (nasdaq: ERTS - news - people ), which hasn't made any official game announcements for fiscal 2008, will need new intellectual property in order to gain market share, said Post.
source:http://www.forbes.com/digitalentertainment/2006/05/11/nintendo-microsoft-sony_cx_kt_0511wii.html
Motorola Launches opensource.motorola.com
Affiliated with the newly announced Motorola MOTODEV developer support program, opensource.motorola.com is aimed at giving developers easier access to world-class code, applications and IP by creating an open but simplified working channel with Motorola across the broader Linux®, Java® and mobile communities. Providing code in an open source environment will not only speed application development on the Motorola platform but drive innovation and adoption of new mobile services and features across the value chain.
A key part of Motorola’s ongoing commitment to open source, opensource.motorola.com features source code -- including kernel and drivers -- for Motorola’s Linux-based devices including the A1200/MING and A780/E680. It also features Java technology including Java test frameworks, sample test cases, and – coming soon – code, documents, and specifications for Motorola-lead JSRs (Java Specification Requests) such as MIDP 3.0 (Mobile Information Device Profile) (see related press announcement).
In addition, the site will house new projects and Motorola contributions across its IP portfolio including Linux and Java related code.
“The foundation of any open source community is based on the supported exchange of information and ideas,” said Mark VandenBrink, Senior Director and Chief Platform Architect, Motorola Mobile Devices. “By making code freely available through opensource.motorola.com, Motorola hopes to accelerate that exchange and contribute to the open mobile development effort by providing a catalyst for greater mobile adoption.”
By sharing source code and projects and opening up a clear channel for exchange, Motorola also hopes to encourage its allies in the mobile industry to work more closely with the open source community to speed the development and deployment of open source applications for the mobile industry.
About MOTODEV
MOTODEV is a new integrated developer program combining Motorola-wide resources, tools and technical support to enable greater developer success, foster a stronger community for innovation and extend the company’s Seamless Mobility vision. Additional information about MOTODEV can be found at www.motorola.com/developer.
About Motorola
Motorola is known around the world for innovation and leadership in wireless and broadband communications. Inspired by our vision of Seamless Mobility, the people of Motorola are committed to helping you get and stay connected simply and seamlessly to the people, information, and entertainment that you want and need. We do this by designing and delivering "must have" products, "must do" experiences and powerful networks -- along with a full complement of support services. A Fortune 100 company with global presence and impact, Motorola had sales of US $36.8 billion in 2005. For more information about our company, our people and our innovations, please visit www.motorola.com.
source:http://www.motorola.com/mediacenter/news/detail.jsp?globalObjectId=6741_6698_23
Sun promises to open source Java
source:http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/16/1756226
'Fly-by-wireless' plane takes to the air
A plane with no wires or mechanical connections between its engine, navigation system and onboard computers – only a wireless network – has been built and flown by engineers in Portugal.
The 3-metre-long uncrewed plane "AIVA" relies entirely upon a Bluetooth wireless network to relay messages back and forth between critical systems – a technique dubbed "fly-by-wireless".
Tests flights carried out in Portugal have shown that the system works well. Cristina Santos, at Minho University in Portugal, who developed the plane, says the aim is primarily to reduce weight and power requirements. "Also, if you do not have the cables then the system is much more flexible to changes," she says.
Many modern planes already use electronic wires, instead of the mechanical links and cables found in older planes, to connect components. This is a lighter and more compact way to control these systems. Some planes, such as the Boeing 777 even use optical fibres, which can carry multiple signals through a single cable.
Radio jamming
Replacing wires with wireless radio links is a logical next step says Peter Mellor from the Centre for Software Reliability at City University in London, UK, who was not involved with the project. But he adds that it raises completely new safety issues.
Such wireless links could be susceptible to electromagnetic interference or even jamming, Mellor suggests. And it could be more difficult to build in back-up wireless connections, he says. "If you jam one link you would jam both," he warns.
But Santos and colleagues are working on this. She says Bluetooth is already fairly resistant to disruption as it is designed to guarantee a certain minimum data stream will always get through. "It has mechanisms for dealing with interference," she says.
In-car radio
Even so, Santos says the system would need extensive testing before she would be willing to ride in a fly-by-wireless plane. She also admits that stringent aviation regulations may mean the technology first appears in cars rather than planes.
"Cables are already a problem in cars," Santos says, because many manufacturers cram ever more electronic gadgetry into each new model.
She admits the idea of having no physical connections may seem scary at first but believes ultimately it will become an accepted way to control brakes and even steering mechanisms in road vehicles.
The findings were presented on Tuesday at the International Conference of Robotics and Autonomous Systems in Florida, US.
source:http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn9176-flybywireless-plane-takes-to-the-air.html
Wireless Security: Attacks and Defenses
source:http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/16/1545250
